


from eden

by atannatek



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst and Tragedy, M/M, Magic, Minor Kim Wonpil/Yoon Dowoon, Nature Magic, Non-Linear Narrative, Reincarnation, Strangers to Lovers, Time Loop, Unreliable Narrator, Vague description of death, but there're some very sweet moments, i'm so proud of this even though i cried while editing it please enjoy it, it is implied that a character is killed because he's gay, this doesn't have a happy ending, wonpil smokes in some scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atannatek/pseuds/atannatek
Summary: and he will ask him: "why do you love the wind?"jaehyung knows the answer even before wonpil can say it. he doesn't know why he does.orjaehyung is a god; the wind itself. and he loves the same mortal boy through all his different lifetimes. forever.
Relationships: Kim Wonpil/Park Jaehyung | Jae
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	from eden

**Author's Note:**

> please please read the tags!! this is a non-linear story with a very unreliable narrator + mentions of death 
> 
> \- you can listen to the playlist of this story [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6cPpoxDjmXtIYybBkBa2Xj?si=UFtWmhLySmG718GZfcO_5w)
> 
> -also, the story name is because of "from eden" by hozier, and the lyrics kind of fit the whole plotline

There’s someone in his meadow.

Jaehyung was asleep when Younghyun came to tell him he had seen a mortal wandering in the wind’s meadow, but he’s now running so he can see the mortal by himself before it’s too late.

His meadow is far away from Ara’s meadow where Jaehyung usually spends his time—Ara’s meadow is always filled with light and it’s warm and the trees there have the most tasteful fruits that never cease to grow. It’s easy to fall asleep there even with the loud drums echoing everywhere.

That’s why the mortals like Ara’s meadow so much; why they give her the biggest and most beautiful offerings and why they constantly play their colorful drums to keep her awake.

But no one likes Jaehyung’s meadow, not even Jaehyung himself.

The wind’s meadow is very different to the sun’s meadow. There aren’t any standing trees there and is very cold no matter if Jaehyung doesn’t visit the place to cause that. It’s dark too; so cloudy that it seems it can rain at any moment despite the fact that Younghyun won’t willingly go there either.

Ro has explained him that it’s all Jaehyung’s fault—when he woke up for the first time, he hadn’t been careful like the rest, so he destroyed his own meadow and exhaled with too much strength during his first breath that he kept the dark clouds of a coming storm stuck over it forever.

No one can fix it. Jaehyung has tried it. Ara has tried it. Ro has tried it. Cré and Younghyun too.

Sungjin had cried when Jaehyung asked for his help considering Sungjin’s the god of time and could maybe turn everything back to how it was before Jaehyung ruined it. Jaehyung doesn’t know why, but Sungjin is usually crying whenever they are together. That’s why he sits between Ro and Ara during the feasts despite preferring to sit with Younghyun in the furthest table of the center of the gods’ hall, where he can see everything rather than be seen, or even with Cré in the table on the right side of the hall—Younghyun is the only person that can make Sungjin stop crying, so they are in the same table one next to the other during all the feasts now. Perhaps it has something to do with Younghyun being the god of water.

Jaehyung doesn’t want to know why Sungjin is so sad, though; he’s scared he’ll get sad too and the fact that his meadow is the only empty meadow among the gods’ ones is already something to be sad about, so he prefers not asking about anything.

Having mortals visiting your meadow and leaving offerings for you means that they cherish you. It’s a way to express their gratitude for the sun or the water or the fertile land that you gift them, but no one likes Jaehyung’s meadow. No one likes Jaehyung. Ro scolds him because he’s careless and keeps causing disasters, but Jaehyung woke up later than everyone else and didn’t have time to learn. It’s not his fault he couldn’t hear the drums.

He always tells the others it was because he was too busy dreaming, and Cré scoffs when he does, and Younghyun smiles, and Sungjin cries, and Ara looks away, and Ro stays quiet.

Gods can’t dream, but Jaehyung is almost sure he was dreaming before waking up. In his dream there was smoke and flowers and so much red.

Jaehyung doesn’t know where all the red was coming from in his dream.

He doesn’t try so hard to understand the meaning of it just as he doesn’t make any questions about why Sungjin cries so much. Jaehyung is thinking on the mortal on his meadow instead. Would he have an offering for him? Jaehyung has never received an offering. Mortals really don’t like him.

But there’s a mortal in his meadow right now. And Jaehyung can see him. The mortal with long white robes is picking up the small blue flowers that occasionally grow at Jaehyung’s meadow, near one of the fallen trunks of the trees that were left there when Jaehyung destroyed everything.

It’s a boy. And for the way he twists the flowers and some grass strands together, Jaehyung realizes he’s making a flower crown. He’s seen Cré do the same before.

Jaehyung doesn’t move from where he is. Jaehyung is aware the mortals can’t see him unless he shows them his mortal form in his meadow like Ara does when she assists ceremonies made in her honor in special occasions. Jaehyung doesn’t even know how his mortal form looks like. He’s never needed to use it before with mortals not worshiping him at all.

So he doesn’t move and he simply stares. What if his mortal form is something ugly like Ro’s? What if he’s not as pretty as Ara and then the only mortal that has ever come to his meadow leaves because of that?

Jaehyung can’t see the mortal’s face. The boy is still picking flowers and twisting them into the crown, humming for himself a tune that Jaehyung has heard Cré singing before. It’s about the spring and the autumn falling in love.

He doesn’t know what love is. Cré has never answered him whether if she does, but she sings that song when she’s with Jaehyung at Ara’s meadow. Cré has her own meadow filled with offerings, but she’s told Jaehyung before she doesn’t like to see him alone with Ara, so she spends a lot of her time there when she’s not busy.

The mortal sits over one of the fallen trunks and Jaehyung can’t see his face even on that position either. The boy continues singing and Jaehyung finds himself mumbling the words of the song back. It’s his first time with a mortal in his meadow, what is he supposed to do? The mortal isn’t playing any instrument or wearing colorful attires and dancing excitedly like the mortals usually do in Ara’s meadow. He’s only humming and working steadily on a flower crown.

And then, the boy says it. Jaehyung knows how the last part of the song is; he’s heard Cré so many times before claiming that she loves autumn, and the mortal says it but he also doesn’t.

The boy says he loves the wind.

Jaehyung is the wind. Does that mean the boy love him?

He woke up later than the others, so Jaehyung doesn’t know many things yet. He doesn’t know how to control the wind or how to fix his meadow or how it is to be loved. And he wants to know all of that because Ro’s naggings annoy him, and the way Sungjin cries whenever he tries to ask for his help to make his meadow a better place annoys him, and how everyone keeps repeating him that he woke up too late to point out his mistakes annoys him.

He’s always too late according to the rest. Jaehyung doesn’t want to be late. He can’t.

Jaehyung forgets about also not knowing how his mortal form looks like and calls the boy. He doesn’t know his name, but they’re the only two beings in the meadow, so the boy surely won’t get confused with that.

The mortal stands up from the trunk then. Jaehyung wonders if his mortal form would be beautiful before the boy turns around; if the boy would be beautiful too.

And he is. The mortal is beautiful and suddenly Jaehyung’s meadow looks a lot more like Ara’s despite it still being cloudy and cold and with not a single tree standing. The mortal is beautiful and he loves Jaehyung.

The boy looks at him. His eyes are opened widely in surprise and the flower crown falls from his hands because Jaehyung wasn’t there before and now he can see him and Jaehyung realizes that maybe his mortal form isn’t pleasant to see.

Jaehyung wants to make up for that, so he doesn’t allow the flower crown to touch the grown, sending a breeze that safely places it over the boy’s head instead.

The boy is screaming. He screams until Jaehyung disappears again because that’s the first time he’s ever had a mortal in his meadow and he doesn’t know what to do. The mortals in Ara’s meadow never scream like that when they see her. Why is the boy screaming then? He said he loves Jaehyung and Jaehyung doesn’t know what to be loved means but in Cré’s song the autumn is happy when he discovers the spring loves him. Jaehyung should be happy then, but he isn’t because the boy is screaming.

What does it mean to be loved?

The boy only stops screaming when he can’t see Jaehyung anymore. He takes a deep breath as he sits in the middle of the grass this time before laying on his back over it. Jaehyung makes sure the crown doesn’t fall from his head by holding it until the boy’s head is resting over the ground.

He doesn’t notice Jaehyung doing that.

“It was nothing” he starts mumbling. He closes his eyes, “There was nothing there. They told me no one never comes here. It was nothing."

Jaehyung frowns at that.

“You don’t like my meadow either?”

He opens his eyes. Jaehyung is sitting next to him, his mortal form visible once more.

The boy screams as soon as he sees Jaehyung—why does he do that? Why does he always do that?

Why does Jaehyung knows he always do that?

And then the boy asks: “Who are you?”

And Jaehyung answers: “I’m Jaehyung. The wind. Did you come here to give me an offering?”

And the mortal stops screaming only then because of course he’s heard of him. He looks at Jaehyung with bright and confused eyes, and he hurriedly puts the flower crown he just made in Jaehyung’s head before saying: “Please take this! I love the wind! I’m very thankful for the happiness you’ve brought to my new home!”

He leaves after that. Jaehyung doesn’t move. Ara never follows the mortals when they give her offerings. She keeps the gifts on the trees on her meadow, but there isn’t a single standing tree in Jaehyung’s meadow. He had broken them all when he woke up from his dream.

Jaehyung is wearing the flower crown when he returns to Ara’s meadow.

Sungjin never speaks during the feasts. He doesn’t sing either. Once, as Jaehyung was sitting between him and Younghyun in the furthest table from the center of the god’s hall, he heard him humming a song about the spring falling in love with the autumn—Cré’s song.

When Jaehyung asked him where he had learnt it from, Sungjin stopped humming. He seemed embarrassed that Jaehyung had heard him.

During the next feast, Jaehyung makes sure to sing as loudly as he can. Younghyun asks him why he’s being so noisy if he doesn’t even know the song and keeps mistaking the words, and Jaehyung explains him that in that way Sungjin can sing without no one noticing.

Sungjin smiles at Jaehyung’s words. He sings for the rest of the feast. And only Jaehyung, sitting right next to him can listen to his voice.

“Where did you get that from?”

Ara tries to touch the flower crown, but Jaehyung moves from where he’s sitting between the tall green grass of her meadow before she can. She looks upset at his reaction and Cré is laughing at her.

“It’s my first offering” Jaehyung tells her proudly. He’s smiling—he’s been doing the same since he arrived to Ara’s meadow, “Someone came to my meadow today.”

Ara frowns, “But why are you wearing it? It’s not that pretty. The flowers are too small and whoever made it ruined some of them.”

Jaehyung glances at the golden necklaces and rings Ara has among her trees. Cré has been playing with some of them, and the constant _cling cling cling_ they make when they collide with each other is echoing far away from them as Jaehyung doesn’t particularly enjoy the noise.

Jaehyung’s first offering was a flower crown made by a beautiful boy that loves the wind. Somehow, he thinks it’s better than anything that Ara has ever been gifted.

“I don’t have trees to keep it safe like you do with your offerings,” he simply says. It’s the true.

Cré scoffs, “We need to build an altar for you then! Every god needs a place to keep their offerings, and since you don’t have trees, we can built something for you” she shakes her head. The leaves that are always stuck between her dark curls fall to the ground and change from green to orange when they touch the ground of the meadow, “Mortals usually come back to our meadows after their first time visiting us because we now can answer to their pleadings better after listening them directly from them, so you need an altar if you're going to be receiving visits from now on."

Jaehyung opens his mouth at that, “He’s going to visit me again?”

Cré chuckles at his reaction. Ara looks concerned.

“He will if you do again what he told you he was thankful for” Cré says between laughs, “You need an altar to be ready for your future offerings—”

“It’ll be my gift!” Ara interrupts Cré, “I’m going to give you a pretty altar because you’re my favorite one!”

Cré rolls her eyes, “Jaehyung is everyone’s favorite one. Ro would want to gift him the altar too. And Younghyun. Maybe even Sungjin. I’ve seen you two talking during the feasts and Sungjin doesn't talk to anybody."

“Well, but they aren’t here right now, are they?” Ara says as she stands up from where she had been lying next to Jaehyung. The yellow dress she’s wearing is one of the offerings she got before, so Jaehyung doesn’t understand what’s wrong with him wearing the boy’s flower crown, “We can go to Jaehyung’s meadow and build the altar and then when any of them find out, it’ll already be too late for them to gift him one. Ro can add something on it if he wants it, but only him."

Ara takes his hand and Cré’s without waiting for an answer. They’re back at Jaehyung’s meadow in a blink.

Jaehyung doesn’t tell them about him not knowing why the boy was thankful for, though he is aware that the boy loves him. He said that.

Jaehyung doesn’t know what does it mean to be loved.

There’s someone in his meadow. This time, Jaehyung is there to see the boy arrive. And the boy sees him too, sitting right where Jaehyung is next to a fallen tree and holding a flower crown.

The boy smiles when Jaehyung tells him he liked his offering.

That day, Jaehyung discovers the boy’s name is Wonpil.

Wonpil loves the wind. He loves Jaehyung.

It doesn’t take so long for Jaehyung to decide he loves Wonpil too despite the fact that he still can’t figure out what it means to be loved.

“What did you bring me this time?” Wonpil says. Even between all the smoke and the darkness of the room Jaehyung can see a smile on his face.

He smiles too.

“A flower crown” he replies.

Wonpil laughs, “You’re so weird, hyung. What’s with you and flowers, uh?”

He throws his cigarette at the floor to take the flower crown from Jaehyung’s hands. He doesn’t wear it, though. He places it on Jaehyung’s head instead.

“There” he grins widely at Jaehyung’s confused expression, “It looks prettier on you, don’t you agree?”

Jaehyung doesn’t. But his complain is barely heard.

Wonpil is kissing him.

It’s not their first kiss. Not in this life. Not in the others.

Jaehyung is loved. Jaehyung is in love. And things have been like that for so long that he doesn’t question anymore what that means because he now knows it.

Jaehyung doesn’t know what to do.

“Wonpil says he won’t be able to visit my meadow again” he confesses to Younghyun. They’re both creating a storm right now that will rise the water level of some rivers like Ro told them to do, and Jaehyung had asked Younghyun to not touch Wonpil’s village in an attempt to keep the paths that lead to his meadow clear.

Younghyun agreed. Cré was right when she said Jaehyung was everyone’s favorite.

“Why?” Younghyun is confused, “He’s been visiting you for so long.”

“He has” Jaehyung agrees. He tries to focus on his tasks and not to break the trees like he did to the ones at his meadow, but it’s difficult since he’s been feeling sad since his conversation with Wonpil the day before, “He’s grown old and he says it’s becoming more tiring to come and see me.”

“Then why don’t you go and see him?”

A tree falls on the earth. Younghyun gives him a worried look since Ro had specifically asked Jaehyung to control himself with this storm, but he doesn’t mention anything. Younghyun is usually almost as quiet as Sungjin, though he smiles between his silence, something that Sungjin doesn’t do.

Jaehyung would apologize but he couldn’t help it. Not after hearing that.

“I can do that?” he asks, surprised, “I thought my meadow was the only place where Wonpil could see me.”

Younghyun sighs. He stops glancing at the disaster Jaehyung just caused and smiles empathetically, “Our mortal form allows us to have contact with them anywhere. Ro never explained you that? Or Ara? They were the ones who told us to Cré and me about it.”

Jaehyung shakes his head. He pulls out a grimace, “They don’t like when I tell them about Wonpil.”

Sungjin is crying. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Sungjin crying, but that’s also the first time he’s ever seen Sungjin since he woke up.

No one never tells him why Sungjin cries. Jaehyung never asks why either.

“Wonpil will die someday, won’t he?”

Jaehyung is crying.

As they’re alone in the table at the hall this time with Younghyun sitting with Ro and Ara for that feast in the honor table, Sungjin is the only one who can listen to his question and his quiet cries.

“Ro told me that” Jaehyung continues and Sungjin doesn’t know if he wants him to listen to it or not, “He said I should stop talking to Wonpil since he will die someday and leaving him alone will the the best for me before I grow attached.”

Jaehyung is crying. He’s sad. And Sungjin isn’t scared of sadness so he moves until they’re so, so close to the other for his mumbles to be clear for Jaehyung.

“Mortals don’t die” he tells him in a quiet voice, keeping his eyes over Ro at the center of the hall. If Ro hadn’t explained Jaehyung that, he must have his reasons, so Sungjin has to be careful, “They are born again over and over so they can always worship us. Their body dies, but not their soul. Sometimes it takes time for them to be born again, but they always do eventually.”

Jaehyung doesn’t move, “Wonpil will be born again then” Sungjin nods slowly, “And I can find him when that happens and he’ll love me like in this life?”

“He won’t remember anything of his past lives, Jaehyung.”

“But I will, right?”

Sungjin turns to see Jaehyung. His eyes are shining because of the tears, but he doesn’t look sad anymore.

“You will,” he ensures him, “We aren’t like them at all. We don’t have a soul, but only energy on us. We can’t forget even if we want to.”

Jaehyung stops crying after that. He smiles.

Wonpil doesn’t believe in gods in the second life in which Jaehyung finds him.

He doesn’t go to Jaehyung’s meadow since his parents never taught him about the existence of meadows and how to worship their owners, but that’s not a problem for Jaehyung. Just as Younghyun told him, Wonpil can see him even if they don’t meet there.

In that life, Jaehyung is the one visiting Wonpil home. It doesn’t bother him. Wonpil lives in a village too, one near the woods and not near a beach like in his last life, so Cré is the one that tells him about Wonpil being born there. Younghyun thinks that’s unfair since the woods are Cre’s home, but Cré doesn’t care about his complains as she keeps bragging about being the one who found Wonpil first from the three.

Wonpil smiles every morning when Jaehyung arrives at his door with flowers.

“Why flowers?” he asks him once. He had never done it before.

Jaehyung is confused, “You liked when the wind brought flowers to your new village because that was the only way you could see them. You told me that.”

There’s a chuckle. Jaehyung feels warm anytime Wonpil laughs. That hasn’t changed at all, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I like them” Wonpil says, “They’re pretty. Like you.”

“You can make a flower crown with them!” Jaehyung exclaims instead of answering to the compliment. Wonpil chuckles again. He must notice how nervous Jaehyung is. There’s a strong breeze embracing them; too cold considering they're in the middle of spring and Ara has made that day so shiny and bright. It’s all so clear and Jaehyung is embarrassed because of that.

Wonpil gives a step closer to Jaehyung. The flowers are trapped between their chests. Cré would complain if she saw her flowers being crashed like that, but Jaehyung doesn’t stop Wonpil. He missed him.

“I don’t know how to make flower crowns, though” Wonpil tells him with a cheeky smile, “Do you?”

Jaehyung nods quickly. Wonpil chuckles at the gesture.

In that life, Jaehyung is the one that teaches Wonpil how to make a flower crown. To Jaehyung’s surprise, Wonpil is really bad at it.

Ara is in his meadow.

“You haven’t gone to visit me in a while” she tells Jaehyung. She sounds offended, “Younghyun says you’ve been here but I don’t understand why since your mortal died years algo.”

Jaehyung is looking at the few flowers that grow at the meadow. He already cut some to give them to Wonpil when he comes back.

“I’m waiting,” it’s what he answers.

Ara frowns, “Waiting for what? He’s dead, Jaehyung.”

He shakes his head, “He will reincarnate. Cré and Younghyun are helping me to find him” Jaehyung grimaces, “It has turned into a competition for them, so I know I’ll find Wonpil soon."

“Yes, mortals reincarnate, but that doesn’t mean he’ll like you again” Ara scoffs, “That’s not how things work. Mortals aren’t like us. They never remember anything.”

“Wonpil won’t remember that he loves me” Jaehyung agrees, “but I will.”

Wonpil lives in a big house during that life. He’s the son of the richest man in the town, and in his house there’s a garden that reminds Jaehyung of Ara’s meadow, except that this one is connected to a forest through a narrow path covered with tall bushes on both sides.

Jaehyung starts working at his home in order to get closer to him. One day, Wonpil asks him for his help because he can’t reach one of the tangerines from the trees at the garden. He’s blushing when he does so, and he avoids looking at Jaehyung at the eyes but Jaehyung puts so much attention on him that he can even count the freckles on Wonpil’s cheeks. They’re ten of them. Wonpil hadn’t had freckles before.

Later, Jaehyung discovers Wonpil doesn’t even like tangerines.

Wonpil confesses it one time when they’re sneaking on the forest to kiss each other. It had just been an excuse to talk to Jaehyung because he was too shy and he thought Jaehyung would hate him like the rest of the servants seem to do since Wonpil’s father is a bad man and they all imagine the only son of him to be the same.

“I don’t hate you” Jaehyung ensures him. Wonpil chuckles, as Jaehyung is desperate to prove his words and hasn’t erased the horrified expression since Wonpil told him that, “I will never hate you!”

“I know” Wonpil smiles. He kisses Jaehyung quickly in the lips, “You wouldn’t bother to put those flowers on my window every morning if you hated me, right? My room is on the second floor. It must be a lot of work.”

Jaehyung nods with enthusiasm, “I will never stop doing that because I don’t hate you”.

“Good” Wonpil kisses him again. It’s a short kiss—Wonpil only gives him short kisses during that life because he’s scared of something Jaehyung doesn’t understand, “I like that you do that. Just be careful, OK? If my father ever finds out about us being together, I don’t know what he’d be capable of.”

Jaehyung is careful. He’s a god, after all. Mortals can’t see him sending all those breezes with flowers for Wonpil after he picks them up from the garden. They can’t find him whenever Wonpil sneaks him inside his room so they can kiss there too and he has to hide when someone knocks the door looking for Wonpil.

Jaehyung is careful because Wonpil is scared of something.

Wonpil is not enough careful.

Another servant hears him talking about Jaehyung to one of his friends by accident. About how they kiss and how they’ve spent nights together in his room without no one knowing. About how he loves a boy.

One morning, Wonpil isn’t there. Jaehyung looks for him in every room of the big house, but he’s gone.

Wonpil’s father couldn’t stand having a son like him.

Jaehyung doesn’t know how to change his mortal form. He’s seen Wonpil being a baby, then a child, a boy, a teen, a man—but Jaehyung never changes, and it’s difficult to become part of Wonpil’s life when he never changes because he looks less mortal and human, and Ara has told him about how mortals don’t like things that aren’t like them. Every god’s meadow is empty now. Humans have forgotten about them.

He’s asked Ro about what he could do about it, but Ro never tells him anything, especially when it has to do with Wonpil. Ara wasn’t helpful either, only repeating the same speech of humans hating their gods , and it seems Cré and Younghyun haven’t discovered it yet either as they couldn’t answer any of Jaehyung’s questions about it. Or maybe they ignored him too. They aren’t interested anymore in helping Jaehyung in finding Wonpil.

Jaehyung didn’t try asking Sungjin about it. It was strange. Sungjin had been crying as soon as he saw Jaehyung entering to his meadow. Sungjin is always crying when he sees Jaehyung now, even during the feasts. Jaehyung doesn’t know why.

Jaehyung waits for Wonpil to grow up in each of his lives to approach him. He never asks Sungjin why he cries.

When Jaehyung shows Wonpil how he can make the branches of a tree dance, Wonpil screams.

They were hugging each other a moment ago and Jaehyung had wanted to try to do something that Wonpil would enjoy in his first life, but Wonpil is screaming now. They aren’t at the meadow or meeting for the first time, but Wonpil is screaming.

“What are you?” he asks, and he sounds scared.

Wonpil loves the wind; he loves him. Jaehyung doesn’t understand his reaction.

“I’m the wind” he tells Wonpil. He tries to hug him once more but Wonpil squirms even further away from him.

“Stop lying. No one can be the wind.”

“But I am!” Jaehyung insists, “Wonpil, I know you don’t believe in the stories about gods, but—”

Wonpil shakes his head, “I told you to stop lying!”

“I’m not lying” he pleads, “Wonpil, I promise it. I’m the wind. I can do it again so you can believe me!”

Wonpil is crying. Why is he crying? Doesn’t he love the wind? Doesn’t he love Jaehyung?

“I don’t want to see you ever again!” he yells, and then he leaves. No matter how much Jaehyung tries to reach him, Wonpil always leave him in that instant.

He doesn’t talk to Wonpil again in that life. The village is filled with flowers brought by the wind until the day Wonpil dies.

It’s summer. An odd summer in the city, just like it has been for the last twenty years. The wind is strong despite the sun shining brightly—it’s almost as if they were fighting. And in a way they are. Ara had been clear to Jaehyung when she asked him to stay away from her golden summers, but in this life Wonpil is born in a city where it seems like it’s always summer. Or not only summer anymore, as there’re wind currents flowing all through the day and night. It doesn’t feel like summer. It hasn't been like that for the last twenty years.

Wonpil loves Jaehyung in this life. They meet in a place filled with smoke and colorful lights in the darkness where Jaehyung has seen Wonpil sneaking into despite being too young to be allowed to do so.

They kiss the first time they meet. It’s confusing for Jaehyung since Wonpil’s reincarnations have never been so shameless, but he’s missed him so Jaehyung doesn’t complain when Wonpil takes him to the restroom of the place and they kiss in one of the cubicles.

Jaehyung makes sure to return to the club after that first encounter. And Wonpil kisses him again, and two weeks later they end up at Wonpil’s place and they’re kissing on his bed.

He tells Wonpil he loves him then. And Wonpil chuckles and says something similar to Jaehyung being silly, but too handsome and kind, so he doesn’t stop kissing him.

Wonpil loves the wind in this life too.

He’s always smiling when the smoke from his cigarette gets lost among the wind. He has no idea it’s simply Jaehyung pulling it away because he had seen Wonpil coughing at the smoke falling on his face when he had a cigarette for the first time when he was sixteen. Jaehyung hadn’t liked that. Specially not after that time Wonpil died of an illness—coughing wasn’t a good signal then, so Jaehyung made sure to help Wonpil avoid it.

But Wonpil kept smoking and as Jaehyung discovered after a while, that wasn’t a good signal either.

“What did we even do to deserve such beautiful wind? I think I'm in love with it,” he tells Jaehyung one night. They’re outside the same club where they met and that Wonpil insists in them going to since it’s cheap and that’s all he can afford it with his job as a cashier at a convenance store.

He’s also very enthusiastic of convincing Jaehyung to dance with him whenever he has the chance.

In that Wonpil’s life, Jaehyung discovers he doesn’t like dancing.

They’re outside, their backs pressed against the walls of the alleyway that forms from one side of the club and the next building. Wonpil had taken out a cigarette since they got there. Smoking inside the club is forbidden, so they always have to leave when Wonpil wants to do it.

The wind is taking all the smoke away—Jaehyung is doing it. And Wonpil just called him beautiful.

“How do you know the wind is beautiful if you can’t see it?” Jaehyung asks. He’s curious; he’s usually curious about Wonpil in this life because he’s so different from the other ones.

Wonpil grimaces, the cigarette hanging between his lips with the gesture, “It feels beautiful.”

He’s said the same of Jaehyung’s kisses. Jaehyung wonders if he can feel the wind in them. He wonders if he has figured something out since the wind is always following him and obeying him.

Jaehyung hopes he hasn’t.

“You really love him?” he mumbles instead of making the question he wishes because they’re things he doesn’t want to ask about, “The wind?”

Wonpil laughs, “I do” he throws the cigarette at the ground before taking Jaehyung by the shoulders and gently pushing him against the wall, “But don’t worry, I love you too.”

Wonpil loves a mortal in this life. They wear similar clothes and share kisses hidden behind walls of stone when they’re alone during the days and when they encounter each other secretly at night when everyone else is asleep.

Wonpil never says something about loving the wind. He doesn’t need to when he already loves someone.

Jaehyung was late. Finding Wonpil this time had been harder since everyone still refuses to talk to him as soon as he mentions Wonpil. Sungjin cries. Younghyun and Cré ignore him. Ara and Ro pretend they don’t know who Wonpil is. Jaehyung doesn’t understand why.

Jaehyung should have found him earlier. Wonpil should love him even in this life because Jaehyung loves him in every of them.

But the mortal boy makes Wonpil smile, and even if it hurts him and never gets the chance to speak to Wonpil, Jaehyung stays around. There’s not much he can do anyways and he has no wish of returning to his meadow just to think on Wonpil being with the mortal.

Jaehyung watches them when they talk, and when they hold hands, and when Wonpil calls for the boy’s name between kisses and chuckles and sweet whispers like he used to do with Jaehyung.

Wonpil loves a mortal named Dowoon during all this life. And on the city where they live, storms happen very often.

Jaehyung doesn’t know it because he woke up too late.

The light and the darkness aren’t the same as life and death.

Sungjin hasn’t stopped glancing at the table at the center of the gods’ hall.

Jaehyung’s usual spot between Ro and Ara is empty. That’s not the first time it happens.

“He’s with the mortal again” Younghyun mumbles next to him. Sungjin doesn’t try denying that he was thinking on Jaehyung, acknowledging the comment with a quiet hum. From everyone, Younghyun is the one who reads him the easiest, but he’s usually quiet about what he sees and that’s why Sungjin allows himself to be so close to him, “Cré told me that Ro went to visit him today since he’s been interfering with Ara’s summers and you know Ara is too proud to actually do something by herself without Ro.”

Sungjin nods at that.

“Every of us always listen to Ro.”

“Not Jaehyung, not anymore at least” Younghyun snorts. Some drops of water fall from his hair when he tilts his head, “I don’t understand it. We thought that his fascination with the mortal had something to do with him giving Jaehyung his first offering and we let it pass. We even helped him when he asked us to find him, but then he did it again and again and again” Younghyun presses his chin over his open palm, with his elbow over the table, “What’s so interesting about that human like to keep him away from us during our celebrations?”

Sungjin bites his lower lip, hesitating whether he should say it or not.

“The mortal loves Jaehyung” he confesses at the end because it’s Younghyun, and if there’s someone who understand it, it must be him.

Younghyun furrows his eyebrows, “Mortals worship us, they don’t love us.”

“It’s not like that for them” he says, “It seems genuine with how Jaehyung speaks so fondly of him.”

Younghyun snorts, “So Jaehyung loves that mortal too. What does being loved even mean? And how does a god love someone back?"

Sungjin shrugs, “I haven’t asked him about that. Maybe one day he’ll tell me.”

“Why do you love the wind?”

Wonpil sighs, but he’s smiling and Jaehyung knows he’s not annoyed by the question. He looks almost pleased at it considering it’s not the first time Jaehyung asks him about it.

“He brings me flowers” Wonpil explains him. They’re sitting right next to the other at Jaehyung’s meadow just like they’ve done so many times before, “In my new village the earth doesn’t allow flowers to grow, but the wind makes them come to me. They remind me of my old home and in that way I don't miss it that much.”

“I’ll always give you flowers!” Jaehyung says quickly, “Then you’ll love me forever.”

Wonpil doesn’t answer him. He kisses Jaehyung instead. It’s the first time that happens for both and before kissing Wonpil Jaehyung didn’t even know what a kiss was, though it doesn’t seem to be like that as he knows exactly what to do during the kiss.

When they pull apart, Jaehyung wants to cry. He doesn’t know why.

Sungjin is looking at the meadow when Younghyun finds him.

He’s crying.

“What are they doing now?” Younghyun asks softly with a smile, pretending he can’t see Sungjin’s tears.

Sungjin shakes his head, closing his eyes, “The same thing they always do.”

He can barely speak because he’s been crying for so long. Younghyun sits next to him.

Younghyun smiles, “So, they’re loving each other.”

Sungjin shakes his head again, “That’s… That’s not love. What Jaehyung chose… It can’t be love. It hurts so much.”

His voice breaks. No, Younghyun thinks there’s something deeper broken inside him.

Sungjin is trapped too.

Carefully, Younghyun takes Sungjin’s face between his hands, “He made that decision, Sungjin. It’s not your fault.”

“He made that decision” Sungjin repeats quietly, “It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault—”

His voice breaks again.

Sungjin never stops crying after that.

Wonpil is telling a story to Jaehyung. He always does that in this life. Wonpil likes to read old tales about gods and a time where humans worship them, but he mostly gets everything wrong since whoever wrote the books Wonpil reads didn’t have an idea of anything.

Jaehyung corrects him about the details of the stores since he discovered Wonpil likes to have someone to talk about the topic even if he doesn't believe what Jaehyung tells him. That’s how they spent their afternoons together, with Wonpil sitting behind the counter of the library where he works at after school, and Jaehyung pretending he can never find the book he’s looking for and occasionally throwing a comment or two when Wonpil reads out loud something from the material for his theology classes.

Most of the days, Wonpil and Jaehyung end up kissing somewhere between the shelfs of the library too. Some days, even if it’s not the first time Wonpil and Jaehyung kiss, it feels like it is since they’re so clumsy and continue bopping their noses accidentally. Each of the days, Jaehyung brings Wonpil a flower.

Wonpil has the flower behind his ear that day. He always does that in this life.

It’s a bit ironic, Jaehyung thinks. How in this life Wonpil seems to be so fascinated about gods when on another life he didn’t believe on them and was scared when he found out what Jaehyung was.

When was that? On his second life? On his third? Has it already even happened? Why can’t Jaehyung remember it?

“Each god had a meadow for their offerings, not an altar” Jaehyung explains Wonpil when he’s done with what he was reading. Despite being winter, none of them are wearing coats since Jaehyung made sure the library wasn’t cold. Wonpil hates the cold in this life. He gets sick very easily.

Wonpil scrunches his nose, both amused and confused at the clarification, “You said the wind had an altar.”

“An altar at his meadow.”

“An altar for his offerings” Wonpil retorts, “But no one never visited the wind’s meadow, right? You also said that. What if because of that no one realized that it was an altar where he received his offerings?”

Jaehyung smiles, “There was someone who visited him.”

“Umh, they did?” Wonpil bites the tip of the pen that he’s been using to write notes down, “I thought no one liked him. The book says people used to call him a destructor.”

“He was like that because he was young since he woke up later than the rest” Jaehyung excuses himself. It’s embarrassing that Wonpil knows that much about that part of him, “But not everyone thought the same of him. Someone visited him and gave him offerings.”

“Offerings on his altar!” Wonpil perks up. With the sudden movement, the flower he’s wearing falls down. Jaehyung could have avoid it, but he was late—no, Jaehyung wasn’t late. He can’t never be late when it comes to Wonpil.

Jaehyung leans closer to Wonpil to put back the flower behind his ear, “The offerings were flower crowns.”

That makes Wonpil chuckle.

“Hyung, I love you, but I can’t write anything you’re telling me on my essay. My teacher would fail me if I mention the wind wearing the flower crowns that a boy made for him.”

Jaehyung frowns. He never told Wonpil anything about him wearing the flower crowns and about the boy from the meadow that visited him, or did he? He’s sure he’s told him about it before, but was it in this life? Has that already happened? Why can’t Jaehyung remember it?

Jaehyung is crying when he arrives at Sungjin’s meadow.

There’s blood in his hands. Gods don’t bleed, and Sungjin knows that.

“Why do you love me?”

Wonpil chuckles at Jaehyung’s question, “Are you looking for a compliment?”

He frowns, “No, I really want to know it.”

“Mhm” Wonpil hums. He moves in the bed and now he’s hovering Jaehyung instead of lying next to him. The window of the room is open and the curtains are thin enough to bring the sun into the room—right behind Wonpil.

From where Jaehyung is, it seems like if Wonpil is the sun even if Jaehyung knows that’s impossible. Ara isn’t anything like Wonpil at all; her hair is all golden and her skin… Jaehyung stops. He doesn’t remember Ara well. He isn’t even sure when was the last time he saw her.

Was she crying like Sungjin? Was she mad at him like Ro? Was she singing like Cré when the spring arrived? Was she as sad as Younghyun? Did Jaehyung tell her about that life in which Wonpil didn’t love him? No, that hasn’t happened yet—Wonpil always loves Jaehyung. There hasn’t been a life where it wasn’t like that.

“I love you because you are kind” Wonpil finally says and Jaehyung stops trying to remember, “And because you’re thoughtful and gentle” he gets closer to Jaehyung, until the sunlight in his words is a whisper against his lips, “I love you because you’re you.”

After Wonpil kisses him once, Jaehyung smiles, interrupting the second coming kiss and being the cause of a pout from Wonpil’s part, “You always say that.”

Wonpil whines as he clearly would prefer to continue kissing Jaehyung instead of talking, “Do I?”

Jaehyung is still smiling, “Yes. You always say that you love what I am.”

“Maybe because it’s true” Wonpil hums. He leans to kiss him again before Jaehyung could say something else.

Jaehyung kisses him back.

The window of the room is open and a warm breeze enters to the room easily. It makes the curtains dance.

Jaehyung remembers it then—the last time he saw Ara it was during summer. He always sees her during summer.

But when was last summer?

There’s finally someone in his meadow. Jaehyung knows it even before Younghyun tells him about it.

Wonpil saw him. He shouldn’t have—he shouldn’t have seen anything. It was an accident. Jaehyung hadn’t meant to hold the bookshelf, but Wonpil would have gotten hurt if he hadn’t had, so he did it.

Wonpil is looking at him. He’s sitting in the floor right where he was a moment ago placing books on one of the shelf, and he’s looking at Jaehyung.

He doesn’t scream.

“It was you” Wonpil says. His eyes are wide open, “You… You put the shelf back on its place without touching it!”

Jaehyung shakes his head. It’s happening again; Wonpil will hate him like he did on that other life; that one when he lived in a big house with a garden that looked like Ara's meadow… No, it wasn’t that one. When was that then?

“It was the wind, Wonpil” he says instead because he doesn’t want to think on how he can’t remember it clearly.

Jaehyung won’t make the same mistake.

“It was you!” Wonpil insists. He stands up, squinting at Jaehyung. The flower falls from his hair, “Who are you really?”

Jaehyung shakes his head again, “It was the wind.”

Wonpil doesn’t say anything for a moment. He isn’t screaming. He’s only looking at Jaehyung.

“It was the wind” Wonpil repeats, slowly. “The wind held that bookshelf.”

Wonpil takes a step closer to him. Then another one. And another one. Until he’s right in front of Jaehyung and his face is so close to Jaehyung’s that he can see the freckles in his cheeks. Jaehyung blinks. The freckles are gone. He was only imagining them.

“And you did it” Wonpil continues, “You… And the wind.”

Before Jaehyung can make up an excuse, Wonpil hugs him.

Jaehyung doesn’t understand it, but then, Wonpil says it against his chest: “I love the wind, Jaehyung.”

The trees are broken. Each of them. Among their fallen branches, the wind is singing; singing so high that he can’t hear how they’re telling him to stop it.

Jaehyung is crying.

“You can come back to us now” Ro says slowly as he helps Ara stand up. There’s blood in his hands, blood in Ara’s arms where he touches her… No, gods don’t bleed. It must be something else. And how does Jaehyung even knows how blood looks like? He’s never bled in his whole life. Gods don’t do that, mortals do.

Jaehyung has never put attention to mortals. Why would he? No one ever comes to his meadow. It has no trees; the trees there are broken, each of them. And among their fallen branches, the wind is always singing. No one like his meadow because of that. No one likes him.

Jaehyung doesn’t answer. He’s crying. Why is he crying? Why does anybody cry?

He passes a hand over his face to wipe the tears. And there’s red. There’s so much red and he screams because why is there blood on his hands? Gods don’t bleed. From who is that blood then?

Dowoon is the first one that tells Wonpil he loves him in that life.

And Wonpil loves him back, just like he has loved Jaehyung many times before.

He loves him back accepting the flowers that Dowoon picks up from the gardens of the boarding school. He loves him back with bright smiles and sweet words and kind glances.

Jaehyung was late. He can’t be late again.

“You wait all those years until you find me again?” Jaehyung nods. Wonpil whines, throwing the blankets away, “Hyung! How long does it take for that to happen?”

They’re laying together on Wonpil’s bed. It’s the first time Jaehyung is at Wonpil’s apartment. There’s a big window in the bedroom that Wonpil opened when they arrived after his shift in the library. He had giggled when Jaehyung started making the curtains of it dance.

“Time doesn’t pass on the same way for us” Jaehyung answers. It’s strange, finally being able to tell everything to Wonpil, but Jaehyung likes the feeling. He thinks he can get used to it, “I don’t know how many years it takes until you come back again, but I always miss you and it feels like an eternity.”

Wonpil hums, pulling him in a hug, “I’ll miss you too, hyung. I miss you when you don’t come every day to the library. How… How do you even get through that? You said that you love me on each of my lives, but you also lose me on each of them.”

He is crying. Jaehyung hugs him tighter, “It’s fine, Wonpil.”

“It’s not!” Wonpil says between his cries. He pulls the fabric of Jaehyung’s shirt, “Isn’t something that I can do to help you? Or the other gods? I… I want you to stop getting hurt because of me!”

The curtains stop moving.

“The others don’t like when I talk about you. Ro and Ara simply avoid the topic and Younghyun and Cré pretend they don’t listen to me, and Sungjin only cries.”

“Who’s Sungjin?”

“The time. He was the first one of us to wake up. He’s seen everything—”

“Everything? Including you and I meeting over and over?” Jaehyung nods. Wonpil moves his face away from Jaehyung’s chest at that. His bright eyes are looking at Jaehyung and it’s as if he was seeing everything underwater, as if it was raining. It takes a moment for Jaehyung to realize he’s also crying. Why is he crying? Why does anyone cry?

“What if he can help us?” Wonpil continues, “Maybe considering he’s seen us, he’ll be kind to us.”

“Sungjin is kind” Jaehyung agrees. He wipes the tears away with the hand he isn’t using to keep Wonpil close, “I used to sing so loud during the feasts so he could sing too because he doesn’t like when someone hears him sing. He… He was the one who told me about your reincarnations because I was sad of losing you.”

Wonpil squirms between Jaehyung’s arms until he’s sitting over his lap and his face is so close to Jaehyung’s. There aren’t any freckles on his cheeks in this life.

“Then he can help us! If you two are friends, I’m sure he’ll help you if you ask. You’ve never asked this to him, right?”

Jaehyung shakes his head. He’s crying. Why is he crying?

Wonpil cups his face between his hands. He kisses him.

“Ask him, Jaehyung. Ask him about it.”

And he does.

The trees are shaking when he wakes up. _Crac, crac_. Their branches are breaking no matter how thick they are. He yawns, stretching both of his arms and then the trees are shaking again and there’s an odd whistle running among the same broken branches. They’re yawning too.

Cré tries to control the trees, ordering them to stop, but that’s the first time they don’t listen to her. “Stop!” she yells at them, and when Ara notices it’s impossible for her to do so, she covers the sun with in a blink. “Stop!” Ara shouts to the trees too, but they’re still shaking.

And before Younghyun suggests draining their roots and quiet Sungjin becomes noisy Sungjin to interfere in the chaos, Ro makes everyone go into a silence—everyone, including the trees.

That’s why they listen to the leaves falling down.

It’s not a yawn anymore, but a rushed and scared breath. The trees react at that. _Crac, crac_. They’re shaking again, trying to breath with him. The clouds follow them this time. It’s raining, a whole storm falling over the earth and destroying the meadow that has just been born.

No, it’s not raining. Someone is crying. The wind is crying.

When Jaehyung finally opens his eyes, he’s says a name. The gods pretend they don’t recognize it.

Wonpil is sweating and his cheeks are tinged in red when he approaches Jaehyung in the corner of the club where he’s been standing for the whole night.

“You keep staring at me” he says, squinting at Jaehyung. He’s being clumsy with his movements, which means he’s tipsy, “What? Do you like what you see but you’re too shy to do something?”

Jaehyung gulps, “I’m sorry if that bothers you. I won’t do it anymore.”

Wonpil frowns, but then he’s laughing and Jaehyung feels all warm inside at the sound, “It’s OK. You’re cute and until now you haven’t given me the creepy vibes” the laugh stops and a beam comes now, “What’s your name?”

“I'm Jaehyung.”

“I’m Wonpil.”

It’s the first time they talk in that life. Jaehyung has met Wonpil too many first times already like to be aware that even if he wishes to do it, they won’t kiss during their first encounter. It’s never like that—Wonpil is never like that.

He doesn’t know why he grabs Wonpil’s hand then and takes him to the only empty room he can find inside the place. It’s a restroom. And it’s hot inside since they aren’t any windows, but Jaehyung can barely think clearly when Wonpil grabs him by the collar of his shirt until they’re so, so close.

Jaehyung kisses him. A breeze hits the room in the instant they’re kissing, and soon Wonpil gets even closer to Jaehyung, not knowing he’s the one making the room colder.

It’s the first time they talk in that life and Jaehyung was the one that kissed Wonpil.

Did things happen like that the first time?

"And can’t you do something about that?” Jaehyung repeats between a sob, “I’m tired of losing him. I’m tired of seeing him die each time without doing anything. Sungjin, it hurts so much, and this time it’ll be worse since he knows everything. Please, I beg you—”

Sungjin isn’t the one between the two crying this time, but he seems in pain. What’s the difference between being in pain and crying? Why does anyone cry? Why is Jaehyung crying?

“Mortals aren’t gods, Jaehyung. No one can change that.”

Wonpil is making a flower crown for Jaehyung while he has his head resting over Wonpil’s lap. In that way, if Jaehyung looks up, he’ll find himself staring at flowers and some glimpses of Wonpil’s face behind his hands.

Only flowers and Wonpil. Not the sun. Ara and Wonpil couldn’t be more different from the other. Jaehyung doesn’t know why he came up with the comparison.

He closes his eyes. Wonpil starts humming a song then, about spring and autumn falling in love but never being able to reach the other since the summer is in between them and the winter keeps dragging the spring away from the autumn.

A song about love. A tragic one. Jaehyung wonders if all types of love are like that one.

He doesn’t know anything about love.

“What does it mean to be loved?” he says out loud, hoping Wonpil will help him with that.

Wonpil stops humming. Jaehyung opens his eyes and all he sees are flowers and a glimpse of Wonpil’s smile.

“It means that a person cares about you very much and will do anything for you” he mumbles, “And that person always thinks on you and wants you to be happy and never feel pain. It means that person wants to be with you forever and that person misses you whenever you aren’t there.”

Jaehyung purses his lips together. That’s a lot.

“Do you love the wind, Wonpil?” he asks.

Wonpil doesn’t stop smiling. He’s blushing now too. Jaehyung thinks he notices his cheeks getting pinker from behind of one of the blue flowers from Jaehyung’s meadow that he’s using to make the crown.

“I do” Wonpil says after some seconds, “He brings flowers to my new village so I don’t miss my home anymore, and he also likes the flower crowns that I make for him and keeps me company every day since I’m so lonely.”

He loves him. Jaehyung feels all warm at the explanation. He’s smiling too.

“And how do you love someone back?” he asks this time.

Wonpil passes a hand over Jaehyung’s hair to place the flower crown on his head now that he’s done with it. He knows Jaehyung will wear it until the flowers dry out or Wonpil makes a new one for him—Jaehyung has told him that before.

He beams widely.

“You do the same for then.”

Ara is the one that finds Jaehyung. He’s crying in his meadow. He hadn’t gathered the enough courage to meet with Wonpil again to tell him about how Sungjin refused to help them so he went back to his meadow for the first time in so long.

“I heard you talking with Sungjin about Wonpil” she says. Jaehyung can’t see her since he’s covering his face with his hands, but she isn’t smiling despite her voice having a cheerful tone, “Ro and I might have a solution for your problem.”

“How?” he cries, “Sungjin said—”

“Sungjin isn’t the god of death or life” Ara kneels in front of Jaehyung. She takes his hands between hers, moving them asides from his face. She’s smiling now, “Ro and I are.”

Wonpil is making a flower crown.

Wonpil is opening the door of his house and taking the flower Jaehyung brought for him.

Wonpil is scared of kissing Jaehyung.

Wonpil is kissing another boy.

Wonpil is smoking.

Wonpil is reading a book about gods.

Wonpil is—

Who is Wonpil?

There’s so much red in Jaehyung’s hands. In Ro’s hands too. It’s blood. But gods don’t bleed. From where has all that blood come from then?

Wonpil’s freckles are more noticeable during summer, when the sun tans his skin.

As they’re laying together in Wonpil’s garden, hidden between the nearest part to the forest that no one never pays attention to, Jaehyung tries to kiss each of them. It makes Wonpil giggle.

He's scared when Jaehyung does that just as he's always scared when they're together. But Jaehyung tells him they're fine. He will always keep him safe.

They’re at Ara’s meadow in a blink. Ro is there waiting for them, though he's not in his mortal form and Wonpil can't see him.

Everything happens in a blink too.

Jaehyung is holding Wonpil’s hand and then he’s not.

Wonpil is making a flower crown for Jaehyung, welcoming him home one morning, kissing Jaehyung during a summer, telling another boy how much he loves him, smiling through a cloud of smoke, reading out loud a story about gods, and then he’s not.

Jaehyung blinks. It’s red. There’s so much red in Ro’s hands. In his hands. And Jaehyung finally knows where all the red comes from.

Wonpil is dead.

“Do you the song about the spring falling in love with the autumn?”

Wonpil chuckles, the cigarette almost falling from his lips at the sudden gesture, “Hyung, you’re really so weird, have I told you that before?” Jaehyung nods, “Good. Because you are so weird” he moves backwards to check the time at the clock inside the convenience store and groans when he notices that his break is going to be over soon. He throws the almost finished cigarette away, and to Jaehyung’s surprise, he lights another one, “But no, I don’t know the song. What about it?”

Wonpil is smiling when he turns to Jaehyung. The smoke he exhales never touches his face.

“It’s an old song that I learnt when i was young” Jaehyung explains, “The spring meets the autumn one day when she sees how the leaves of the trees turn orange. She falls in love with him then.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that” Jaehyung confirms, “And the autumn is happy the spring loves him because he loves her back.”

Wonpil frowns, “But isn’t summer between spring and autumn? Does that mean they’re never together?”

Jaehyung pulls out a grimace, “They are together. Sometimes.”

“How? Summers don’t stop existing.”

“They don’t” Jaehyung agrees. He looks up at the sky—it’s not summer, but the sun is bright over their heads, as if melting the blue of the sky away. He wonders what Ara is doing there. He hasn't seen her in so long; he hasn't seen anyone except for Wonpil in so long, “The spring and the autumn are together because the spring sends flowers for the autumn and the autumn sends leaves to the spring. It’s their way to keep their love alive.”

Someone calls Wonpil’s name from inside the store. It’s the girl that he works with on this shift. She knows Jaehyung, so she’s used to having to drag Wonpil from his breaks as he always spends them with him on the tables outside of the store.

Wonpil ignores her. She’s also used to that.

“And how do they even do that, hyung?” Wonpil questions Jaehyung. He plays with the collar of Jaehyung’s jacket. He’s worn it before and Wonpil has told him more than once how much he likes how it looks on him. Jaehyung hadn’t explained him he stole it from someone’s rooftop. 

Jaehyung leans down until he can kiss Wonpil. He is aware that was what he was looking to do anyways.

“With the wind, Wonpil” he says and they’re still so close to the other that the wind of his words falls over Wonpil’s lips, “The wind is the one that helps them to be together.”

Jaehyung is hugging Wonpil’s body.

He’s crying. The wind is crying.

“You’ll be back” he mumbles between his cries. There’s so much red in his hands though he can barely see it with the tears turning everything into a blur, “I’ll wait for you like I always do and then we’ll love each other and you’ll be back to me. It'll all be fine."

Someone puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s Ara. There isn’t blood in her hands, but when Jaehyung looks at her, he can see traces of red everywhere.

“He won’t. When a god kills a mortal, it stops their reincarnation cycles. He’s gone, Jaehyung” she smiles, touching his cheek, leaving a trace of red wherever she puts her hands, “You can come home with us now.”

Jaehyung screams. It’s like if he was being awaken again. The trees are shaking. _Crac, crac_. Their branches are breaking no matter how thick they are. The golden gifts that Ara has collected for centuries are falling down, clinging against the ground and getting lost in the middle of the long grass.

“Stop!” Ara yells to the trees, but they keep falling.

“Stop!” Ro orders them too, and they only obey him like they did before when Jaehyung woke up.

And because it’s suddenly so quiet, that’s why they can hear the rain coming. A whole storm is falling over the earth and destroying Ara’s meadow.

No, it’s not raining. Someone is crying. The wind is crying. Jaehyung is crying.

There’s not a single tree standing on Ara’s meadow anymore.

Jaehyung is the wind. What does it mean to be loved?

He doesn’t have to worry about knowing it now, though. He will discover everything later and he’ll know it then. It will be through flower crowns being gifted to him and conversations about a village near the sea; through long nights inside a dark building filled with smoke; through morning visits; through stealing kisses in a library; through long summers in between the forest; through seeing the one you love in love with someone else. Jaehyung always discovers it.

Why does Jaehyung know he always does it?

The wind is crying.

"Bring him back! You’re the god of time. I know you can do something!”

Sungjin is crying too.

“Time doesn’t work like that, Jaehyung. There’s never a going back. I can’t change the past, just like I couldn’t fix your meadow.”

There’s a thunder. A whole storm is starting.

“You never tried it! But you have to try this time. Please, Sungjin. Please—”

The wind is so strong that Jaehyung doesn’t listen to what Sungjin says the first time. He asks him to say it again, and Sungjin is crying, shaking his head as if he really doesn’t want to tell him anything, but somehow, words find their way out of his mouth.

“Maybe there’s something I can do. I’ve never tried this before, but it should be possible since we won’t try to change anything.”

“Tell me” Jaehyung pleads. The wind is crying. The world is drowning. Somewhere else, Younghyun must be trying to stop the storm.

It takes a moment for Sungjin to speak. Again, it’s like if he didn’t want to but he can’t control his actions.

Jaehyung doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t need to know. He is only thinking on Wonpil.

“We don’t have a soul and a body like mortals do” Sungjin finally speaks. He looks in pain and he’s crying. Has it always been like that? “We’re made of pure energy that attaches us to this world and that’s why we can control the elements on it. I was the first one to wake up, so I saw it everything. I saw the light and the darkness being born when Ara and Ro woke up. I saw the earth and its seas forming when Cré and Younghyun woke up. And later, I saw life starting when there was wind and air when you woke up too” he makes a pause. Sungjin shakes his head. He doesn’t want to continue, but he can’t help it, “Our energy provides life. We create it. All of us combined. Without any of us there wouldn’t be anyone living except us. We’re the ones that make it possible, but—” he shakes his head a second time, “But we wouldn’t need all of us to preserve life. To… Manipulate it. Just like Cré makes tree grows and how Younghyun controls how the rivers move towards the ocean. I can manipulate time too, make some moments longer and other shorter, but I can’t go back or go forward. It… It doesn’t work like that. Not on my own.”

Jaehyung gets it, “And if you’re not alone?”

“Maybe I would” Sungjin nods with hesitation, “But nothing would change because it was Ro who killed Wonpil and when a mortal is killed by a god all his reincarnations are gone. There’s nothing to go back because Wonpil’s soul disappeared and I can’t reach it even on the past.”

“You said you could help me” Jaehyung cries. The wind screams. The world is tearing appart and his tears now get lost among the drops of rain that fall down to Sungjin’s meadow, “But you keep repeating that Wonpil is gone. What are you doing?”

He can’t see Sungjin’s tears either anymore.

“I can’t reach Wonpil on the past, but in your memories. Gods… We remember everything. And I can find him there, but I can’t bring him back, Jaehyung, because he no longer exists in our world.”

“Then what?”

Sungjin looks away. His hands are tightened in the shape of fists and Jaehyung doesn’t understand why he does that since he has nothing to hide as his hands are not the ones covered with blood.

“If you want him back, if you want him to love you again, I’ll only be able to give you your memories of you two together. But even that… It’ll be hard to keep them alive by their own. They’ll need all of your energy, not partially like when you manipulate the wind. You’ll be stuck in your memories forever. You’ll exist in our world, but you won’t be able to realize it because your life will not move forward from this moment.”

Jaehyung doesn’t speak. He’s crying.

“Time will become a bubble for you. You and Wonpil will coexist inside it and if you ever get out of it, you…” Sungjin’s voice breaks, “It will all be gone because that bubble will only exist because of you and your energy. All of your energy. It’ll take it all from you. Do you understand what that means?”

Another thunder. The sky is crying. The wind is crying. Jaehyung hasn’t stopped crying.

Jaehyung nods.

“Do it.”

Sungjin hasn’t stopped crying either, “Jaehyung, what I’m trying to say is that you won’t be able to come back from there.”

“I know. And I won’t want that.”

“You’ll see Wonpil die all those times and you won’t be able to change it because we can't change the past.”

“But I’ll also met him all those times again and love him” Sungjin is trembling under the rain. Jaehyung doesn’t touch him because the water hasn’t taken all the blood from his hands yet, “Sungjin, do you know what does it mean to be loved?”

Sungjin presses his lips together to hide a sob. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but Jaehyung is aware of his answers: gods don’t know what’s love. No one does. Not Cré who sings about the spring loving autumn. Not Ara and Ro that wanted to keep Jaehyung with them and no one else. Not Younghyun who never says anything to not hurt anyone.

“It means to have someone who cares about you very much and will do anything for you. Someone that always thinks on you and that wants you to be happy and never be in pain. Someone that wants to be forever with you and that misses you whenever you aren’t there.”

Sungjin doesn’t try muting his sobbing this time.

“Sungjin” Jaehyung calls for his name again. He gives a step in his direction, until he’s almost taking his hand, “Do you know how do you love someone back?”

He opens his eyes. Jaehyung is right in front of him. He’s crying, but he’s smiling too.

"It means doing exactly the same for them.”

Jaehyung dreams about smoke and flowers and the color red.

He dreams about Wonpil loving him. About him learning what’s to be loved, how to love someone back.

When Jaehyung wakes up, later than everyone, he doesn’t understand the meaning of his dream.

There’s someone in his meadow.

Jaehyung was asleep when Younghyun told him he had seen a mortal wandering in the wind’s meadow, but now Jaehyung is awake and he can see him.

It’s a boy. He’s wearing long white robes and he’s picking flowers to make a crown out of them, humming a song about spring loving autumn and being together because of the wind.

And then he says it: he loves the wind.

Jaehyung is the wind. The boy loves him.

He doesn’t know what does that mean. He woke up later than the rest of the gods because he was dreaming about smoke and flowers and so much red that he has no idea where it came from. Jaehyung doesn’t know many things yet.

Jaehyung calls for the boy. He doesn’t know his name, but the boy can listen to him and he stops picking flowers.

He knows he’s beautiful before he turns around.

The boy glances at him. His eyes wide open in surprise and the flower crown falls from his hand because Jaehyung wasn’t there before and now he can see him.

Jaehyung catches it before the crown touches the grown, placing it over the boy’s head with a breeze.

The boy doesn’t scream at the action. He simply stares at Jaehyung with big curious doe eyes and doesn’t move at all.

Jaehyung doesn’t know why he isn’t screaming. He should be. He’s done it before. He always does it.

“I’m Wonpil” the boy says instead. And Jaehyung knows it. He knows his name. He knows him. But he also knows he wouldn’t be able to forget something like that when he has never gotten interested into mortals before. Mortals don’t like Jaehyung. They never visit his meadow.

“I’m Jaehyung” he says too.

Wonpil smiles. Jaehyung smiles back.

No, it’s definitely impossible for Jaehyung to forget a moment like this. That must the first time they ever met.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this as much as i enjoyed working on it! it was a whole rollercoaster considering i'm not used to writing angsty stories plus, this is my first time writing a non-linear story, which is something that i've been wanting to do for a while!
> 
> in case you have any question, you can leave it on my [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/dowoonbubbles) or my [twitter](https://twitter.com/dowoonbubbles)


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